[Peetwo]

Times up for Muppet 6D Darren -

Via the Oz today:

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association tips general aviation crisis

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester.

• Annabel Hepworth
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM July 14, 2017
  

Aircraft owners and operators have issued a fresh warning that general aviation businesses are being pushed to the brink.

They have seized on new figures that suggest a “serious decline” in the number of general aviation maintenance businesses.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Australia says newly obtained data from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority shows that between April last year and last month, just 15 new certificates of approval were issued to general aviation maintenance businesses.
But during this time 29 were cancelled, and a further 27 were suspended.

In a letter to Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester and CASA boss Shane Carmody, the association again warns that without action, “the results would be further business closures and unemployment”.

“While the Australian economy has enjoyed 103 quarters of continuous growth (1991 to 2017), the general aviation industry has experienced double-digit declines, suffering a 34 per cent decline in pilot numbers and a 35 per cent decline in avgas sales in just the last 10 years,” AOPA Australia’s executive director Benjamin Morgan says in the letter.

He also points to warnings by the Aircraft Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Business Association about the fall in apprenticeships for aircraft maintenance.

AMROBA director Ken Cannane said he was worried about a new low in the number of apprenticeships next year.

“They’ve got to get flying back and general aviation’s got to get back to flying to boost the capability of the maintenance industry because we’re suffering,” he told The Australian.

A CASA spokesman said there were a “range of factors” influencing the statistics. Some maintenance of large aircraft had gone offshore “due to economic factors”, while for small aircraft some general aviation operations had gone to Recreational Aviation Australia (which governs ultralights) with some of those aircraft covered by owner maintenance.

“It would be incorrect to suggest that movements in the number of maintenance or other aviation organisations can be attributed directly to regulatory issues only,” the CASA spokesman said. “Aviation is a complex industry and a simplistic analysis of data is not valid.”

In its “Project Eureka” reform blueprint last year, calling for the revitalisation of the general aviation sector in Australia, AOPA warned that apprentice training had been in “free fall” since 2010.

A 2015 report, the Future of Aircraft Maintenance in Australia, from University of NSW academics said there was a need to “rebuild” the maintenance and maintenance training sectors so Australia could meet its needs across areas including general aviation. Mr Chester previously has said he was confident general aviation could have a “prosperous future” in Australia.

Update with comments in reply to the Oz article: Courtesy Stephen & Sandy -

Stephen
3 hours ago



General Aviation can only have a prosperous future in Australia with government intervention. You note CASA spokespersons quote " It would be incorrect to suggest that movements in the number of maintenance or other aviation organisations can be attributed directly to regulatory issues only,” which means there are regulatory issues attributing to the decline. The regulatory issues include the privatisation of engineering training and assessment with standards that are not compatible with the VET training system. Complex regulatory compliance for maintenance organisations are just the icing on the cake.

Rules that make it harder for people to learn to fly without spending a million dollars (if they can find a flying school left open) are a killer as well.

Privatisation of aerodromes, large and small, with commercial incentives to lease airport land to retail outlets further crushes the playing field.
The price of fuel doesn't help either.

It can be brought back from the brink, but it needs little less greed and a little bit of government understanding and support

---

Alexander
2 hours ago



Minister Chester, like his predecessors, has sat back and let the independent regulator, the (Un) Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) run amok. The independent model (failed) of governance has ruined what was a good and growing industry. In it's 29 years this example of abrogation of Ministerial responsibility has exercised virtually unlimited power to regulate, bully and tax General Aviation (GA) into a shadow of its former self. For the CASA to say it's regulatory actions not the only problem facing GA is just a mealy mouthed excuse.

Back in 1988 CASA was tasked with rewriting the rules. By it's own numbers it has spent hundreds of $millions on the rewrite and so far produced the developed world's most unusable rule set, and, amazingly, still has not finished this rewrite. They have proven that they are incapable.

How do we compare with NZ?

Their rewrite took 5 years and a fraction of cost in embarrassing contrast to our ongoing make work exercise.

How do we compare with the vibrant GA scene in the US? Very poorly.

Example; nearby to me a long established flying school the previous incumbent quit to work for CASA and a new senior instructor attempts to restart this valuable regional service. An $8000 dollar fee upfront, more than twelve months ago, applying for an approval with an operations manual that the Chairman of CASA assured me there was a CASA model manual ready for such applications. Still no approval. In the USA? No fee and that instructor had the right to start immediately. 70% of US pilots are trained by independent instructors.

We are a joke.

Jobs and growth? I choke every time I hear that and think on the thousands of aviators and businesses that have been driven to the wall by the most intransigent and egotistical bureaucratic machine in Canberra. Partly consequent no doubt on the massive pay packets and heated offices for the feather bedded employees of CASA, though substantial numbers are to be found seminaring during winter in warmer climes, Queensland and OS being popular.

Perversely in some ways, the worst of it is that we have not only a shrinking industry but one that is less safe and today not even enough home grown pilots to serve our airlines.

Alex in the Rises.

MTF...P2